If I’m not going crazy, prior to this issue occurring around 3 days ago, if you minimized the Roblox client, it would continue to run in the background. Now, if you minimize the Roblox client, the entire client, including everything rendered and handled locally will be paused indefinitely until you re-open the client window.
This has caused a lot of issues for games that have systems handled on the client, as these systems simply will not continue running. This also makes it incredibly easy for users to bypass a lot of restrictions in games that handle client-sided physics and checks just by minimizing their window; no exploits or any malicious software required.
Again, I don’t know if this is just a me issue that has something to do with my Roblox client or hardware, so take this with a grain of salt.
I’ve provided a video below showcasing the issue:
System Info
OS: Windows
CPU: Intel Core i5-10600k @ 4.10GHz
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1660 SUPER
RAM: 16 GB
Expected behavior
At least to my recollection, prior to this issue, minimizing the Roblox client window would not pause it, thus continue running in the background like normal.
You are correct, this was a change we rolled out deliberately on Windows and Mac to address some feedback about the app taking up too much memory and CPU even when the window is not in the foreground. It was just a test though, so we’ve since turned off this behavior and we’re considering whether to move forward.
I’d love to gather your feedback on this overall, and any details you can share about the trade-offs or unintended consequences. I’ve noted what you’ve said about client-side physics, but let me know if you have any other thoughts or specific games that might be affected and I’ll pass that along to my team for consideration.
Confirming that we will not proceed with this optimization. We have some ideas for further optimizations to reduce the amount of memory and battery that the Roblox Player uses when idle, but we agree that we shouldn’t affect performance of the player within a game.